The fake outdoors: Nature that isn’t real still heals

STAND on the shores of Wembury Bay and let nature heal you. Here on England’s south-west coast, the gentle sway of the trees in the ocean breeze will lower your blood pressure, the sound of lapping waves will banish the stress hormones from your blood, and the pine scent will invigorate your immune system.

On closer inspection, you’ll find that something is missing from this scene&colon; namely, all of it. This is no shore. You’re in an intensive care unit 325 kilometres inland, in Birmingham. But the illusion will fool your body into healing itself, its creator claims.

Decades of research have built a compelling case for the healing effects of nature. But because this field has been largely overlooked by medicine, it has been difficult to uncover the direct causes. At the same time, a growing body of evidence has begun to suggest that it is possible to hijack these effects to trigger the body’s healing mechanisms – without actual greenery. A small number of projects are now under way to apply the new theory. Although it is early days for this work, it could one day help everyone – from the bedridden to the office-bound – harness nature’s curative powers.

To say nature is good for you is the stalest of clichés. Claims about its restorative effects go back at least 2000 years, when Taoists were drawing links between good health and tending greenhouses. In the 20th century, science finally began to weigh in. In 1984 the biologist E. O. Wilson linked the phenomenon to evolution. According to the “biophilia” hypothesis, nature’s restorative benefits ...

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